


Steam

by Xov



Category: Quantum Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner - 五代 ゆう | Godai Yuu, Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
Genre: Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Please don't read if any of the tags bother you at all, Rating will probably go up, Self-Discovery, Sexual Content, based on novel characterizations, lol, sexual awakening
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:20:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22413109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xov/pseuds/Xov
Summary: Heat craves.
Relationships: Heat/Serph
Comments: 4
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a long time DDS fan and somewhat recently read QDS 1 and 2 and now I must help feed this fandom.
> 
> This is gonna be a randomly and sparsely updated drabble series that has no plot and will probably have no real end, but I hope you enjoy it!

He wonders if it was always there, the hunger. If it was there long before their awakening – maybe their Atma merely heightened it, gave them the ability and the sense to act upon it – to  _ use _ it.

Because Heat has always craved.

He craved power, obviously. Everyone did. It was the way of the world they survived in. Win or become more of the same rain that clouds the sky in a ceaseless haze that he never once stopped to consider may be hiding something behind it before  _ she _ arrived. Not that it matters. Knowledge of a sun he can’t see and won’t help him win his next battle is useless information. A distraction. All he needs are his guns and his teeth to shoot and tear apart his enemies to bring himself and Serph above them all, where they belong. And Serph –

Serph is on a self-appointed watch atop the east side of their base balancing on a wicked piece of metal Heat discarded after testing himself in partial transformation. Instead of scanning the expanse of land in front of him for potential invaders or scouts, Serph’s eyes are turned up, an occasional sprinkle of mercurial rain landing on his face, gliding down unmarred skin and clinging to his jaw before continuing its journey along a pale, tender neck beneath the high collar of his uniform.

And Heat  _ craves. _

An even voice interrupts the coil of hunger constricting Heat’s gut. “If you were planning a surprise attack, you’ve taken too long to catch me off guard.”

Heat offers a gruff laugh before walking over, making sure to land a heavy step on the other side of the scrap metal Serph stands on, forcing him to jump off before being catapulted directly into Heat.

“I don’t need to be unseen to be surprising.”

Serph’s lip quirks up into an unbidden smile before he catches himself, turning silver eyes back to the drab thing they call the sky. Eyes that are the same liquid silver as the rain itself. A memory of Serph surfaces. He wears an invitation on his lips and looks at him with eyes that refuse to stray even when Heat wishes they would. The colors are all wrong.

“I know,” Serph says as Heat takes his place by his side. “What brings you out here?”

They both know it’s a redundant question. Where Serph goes, Heat will follow in his own time. It’s how it’s always been and will always be, because Heat  _ craves  _ and Serph is his perfect complement. Agile where Heat is unyielding, shrewd where Heat is direct. A perfect partner in combat. The only leader Heat would follow. If Serph were anyone else, anyone else at all –

A fat glob of rain splatters against a high cheekbone, gathering and tentatively crawling down skin to collect at the bottom of a pointed chin, a shimmering path left in its wake.

Heat’s mouth waters. He doesn’t spare half a moment to think before his thumb brushes away the drop before it can fall on its own, tracing the line of silver across Serph’s face, imagining how it would taste –

Serph shudders but doesn’t draw back, angling his head in exactly the right way for Heat to unfurl his hand and –

And what?

He holds his hand there, covering the left side of Serph’s face, covering the brand of Varuna stamped across it – and he could almost pretend things were how they used to be, when they both trailed in the wake of a man without allegiance, when they were still learning how to properly clean their guns, when Heat didn’t want to tear back that damned collar and find Serph’s carotid artery with his teeth.

He could pretend, but there was no part of him that wanted to. Even the blood in his veins sang with a burning desire at the contact. He’d never choose to lose this feeling, this single-minded thrill.

Heat licks his lips and Serph’s eyes dilate, becoming thin rings of silver behind insatiable black. Heat drags a thumbnail across a dark line as if he could scrape the brand off Serph’s face like paint from a window. Serph’s breath hitches, freezing in his lungs, waiting for Heat to steal it the same way he’s stolen his attention.

Heat’s thumb reaches Serph’s bottom lip and something electric dances from the pad of his fingertip and down the column of his spine as he presses in and pulls up, revealing an elongated canine.

“Wanna bite?” Heat asks, voice low, thumb still pressed against teeth that could effortlessly sever the digit from the rest of his hand. He expects Serph to pull away, to cover his mouth and excuse himself as he fights the cravings he may now accept but still hasn’t fully come to terms with.

Serph does not pull away, and beyond the telltale need in his eyes, his face is unreadable.

Heat does not expect his thumb to find itself trapped between the same set of teeth it was teasing, a slender hand wrapping around his wrist as a warm tongue tastes the offered appendage.

He did not expect it at all but he’s burning from the inside out with flames Agni could never dream of controlling while his free hand takes the opportunity to yank down Serph’s collar as he proceeds to take his pulse with his tongue. It’s high, he notes before sinking his teeth in just deep enough to avoid drawing blood. Serph is soft and oddly cool to the touch and smells of gunpowder and rust and  _ blood _ and Heat doesn’t notice they’re moving until his saliva-slick thumb meets cold air when Serph gasps as his back hits a wall.

Pinned against him, Heat acknowledges how small Serph is, how far he needs to turn up his head to meet his eyes, how Heat’s body seems to swallow him whole. His breath comes out ragged and a part of him knows he needs to back off before their little taste test turns into a feast, but Serph is already mouthing his wrist, dragging a sharp tooth along his ulnar nerve and running his hand along the dips and grooves of the muscle in his arm and Heat never would have dreamed he’d enjoy being treated as little more than a piece of meat, but if Serph wanted to bring out the teeth right now, sink them in deep, Heat wouldn’t deny him. Wouldn’t deny  _ himself. _

Dizzy with want, Heat presses his arm harder against Serph’s mouth, whatever sanity he had left crumbling to dust when the fragile barrier of his skin is finally,  _ finally _ pierced and the air is filled with the tang of his own blood. His fingers twitch erratically as Serph sucks, eyes rolling back as he takes what he wants, what he  _ needs _ , a line of blood escaping the corner of his mouth and dripping down his chin – and Heat wants to brush it away, same as the rain, wants to trace the contours of Serph’s face and stain it red with his own blood.

As if sensing his intention, Serph releases his arm, more droplets of fresh red streaming down his face and neck as his chest heaves, strained.  _ Restrained _ . Heat’s plans change when he catches something cognizant flash through Serph’s eyes, losing the glaze of animalistic instinct he was lost in a moment ago. His tongue finds Serph’s neck again, collecting the remnants of escaped blood as it travels up, pausing only to revel in the sensation of the bob of Serph’s throat as he swallows. He places his abused arm against the wall beside Serph’s head as he nips at his chin and licks up to his mouth, leaving no trace of blood behind. Their lips brush together as he draws back, a jolt of something familiar passing between them.

“Heat,” Serph says. It’s all he needs to say. Heat knows Serph as well as he knows himself, even if things have been changing between them, even if Serph is uncertain of himself, uncertain of  _ Heat _ – Heat will hold onto that certainty for him. Together they will achieve their goals. There is no alternative.

Serph grasps Heat’s shoulders, but he’s not pushing him away, eyes wide, searching for something they only know the answer to in dreams of another life. Heat doesn’t give a shit about those. He’ll make his own answers.

A cold hand travels to the back of Heat’s neck, exploring the curves of bare muscle along the way. He draws him in, lips centimeters apart, and Heat wonders if he’s trying to recreate the sensation they felt before. They’re so close that he needs to close his eyes, enhancing the feedback of his other senses. He can feel hot puffs of air against his cheek, what must be the remaining warmth of his own blood lingering in Serph’s mouth.

He burns warmer at the thought, the bitter chill of Serph’s hands a spear subduing the blood boiling beneath his skin, calling for him to give into temptation.

“It’s been a while since you’ve eaten. You can take more than blood.” Heat says. He’s close enough to hear wet lips part. The hand on his neck grips harder and for all the work his heart seems to be doing, he may as well be in the middle of battle.

“That’s not funny.”

“I’m not kidding. A few bites won’t set me back. And I’d expect you to return the favor if I ever needed it. Not that I’m dumb enough to deliberately starve myself.”

“It’s hardly deliberate,” Serph insists, releasing Heat and trying to move past him.

Heat blocks him in, placing his arms at either side of his head, pressing against his body with his own to prevent him from ducking away. The wound on his right arm is already beginning to close, blood bubbling over to dry in coarse, bulbous scabs. The number of red rivulets decorating his skin offers a macabre sight that would have his mouth watering if it wasn’t already.

“Then hunt with me.”

“Hunt? Is that the word we’ll be using?” Serph asks, a disdainful curl to his upper lip.

“Need to eat to live, need to kill to eat… Call it whatever. It won’t change what it is.” 

“And this? What’s this? What are we doing right now?” Serph asks.

“Does it matter?”

“I don’t know,” He tries to push Heat away, but he’s never been a match when it comes to sheer physical strength.

“You’re sweating,” Heat says, pressing their foreheads together. Serph may as well be a block of ice. “Or are you melting?”

“You’re the one who’s burning up.”

“Says the walking freezer.”

“If it’s getting too cold for you then let me go.”

“I never said I couldn’t handle it. Hunt with me.”

“I’m busy right now.”

“You’re not.”

“Heat, let go.”

“Is that an order,  _ Leader? _ ”

“Does it need to be?”

Heat doesn’t back down, enjoying their game too much to let it end so soon. He traces the bite mark he left on Serph’s neck, already a deep blue bruise laid in stark contrast against glacial white skin. There’s something satisfying about knowing he’s the one who put it there, that Serph trusts him not to tear out his throat.

Serph’s eyes are still more black than silver and instead of rain, instead of blood – drops of sweat bead and fall and Heat can’t help but take advantage one last time, scraping his teeth and tongue across Serph’s unmarked cheek.

“He ~ey, Buddy! You out here?” A very unwanted voice calls out.

“He said he - OH!” A girlish voice squeaks, and Heat is immediately irritated enough to pull away from Serph on his own in order to glare down the two intruders, scowl firmly in place. His words would be wasted on them. Cielo is unaffected, but Sera shrinks into herself and with a face redder than Heat’s hair and eyes that look everywhere except the two men in front of her.

“Heya, Heat. Didn’t know you’d be up here with –  _ aughk! _ ”

“So-sorry-to-interrupt, we’ll-find-you-again-later!” Sera blurts out as she yanks Cielo back down the same set of stairs they clambered up.

Predictably, Serph is already several paces away from Heat, but the chill emanating from the Embryon tribe leader is somehow considerably more powerful than it was when Heat was pressed flush against him.

Serph is running the back of his hand across his mouth and reaffixing his collar back over his neck, guaranteeing Heat that their fun is over.

“Tomorrow,” Serph says.

“Tomorrow?” Heat echoes.

“We’ll…” He makes a face, “ _ patrol _ . If you can wait that long.”

Heat smirks, flipping his cloak back as he rests a hand on his hip.

“Patrol, huh? Fine by me. I know a few reliable areas we can scout,” He turns away, ignoring the churning in his gut that brought him to Serph in the first place.

“Heat,” Serph calls. Heat looks back over his shoulder. Serph’s jaw is slack and he seems to be on the verge of saying something. He shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

Heat has nothing to say to that, but everything to think about, so he continues wordlessly ahead.

He runs his thumb across his bottom lip, testing the sharpness of his teeth.

“I’m fucking starving.”


	2. Chapter 2

Varuna slips between crevices of demolished buildings without resistance, leaving Agni to bulldoze his way through crumbling concrete jungles and metallic skeletons of vehicles that have long succumbed to the eternal hail of bullets and explosives that plague the junkyard.

Their target is fast, faster than Varuna, but large enough to hinder its own escape within the unaccommodating cityscape. If it tries to jump, it risks being impaled by spears of ice. If it tries to hide, Agni stomps and rends until entire infrastructures collapse.

Serph, the soft-hearted fool, tried to give their prey a chance, to exchange information for their life – but there’s a reason Heat chose the area they’re in.

On the outskirts of the Embryon Tribe’s territory, there’s a space where deserters or the rare unaffiliated tend to hole up, controlled by hunger, without a single stable thought left in their heads to ground them as they obsessively watch and wait for signs of life to stumble their way with designs of an easy meal.

They never expect Agni. They certainly wouldn’t expect Agni and Varuna.

They spotted him first, the faded splashes of blue across a ragged uniform signifying him to be of the Brutes Tribe. His skin was a washed out white, his face cracked and peeling back to reveal patches of black fur beneath, hands and feet deformed as claws yawned out of mostly human digits, bloody and discolored.

There must have been some sense left in him, as rather than mindlessly attacking upon noticing them, he turned tail and fled.

Their quarry is eventually forced to come to a stop and Heat grins with two sets of teeth that could snap shut with fifty times the force of a steel jaw bear trap. Serph has successfully herded him into a dead end, piles of rubble and shrapnel blocking any way out.

“Is that it?” Heat asks with the same guttural voice coming from two throats. “Don’t have any fight in you? Pathetic. I was looking forward to a good meal today, but after this farce I’ve almost lost my appetite.”

Even without visible eyes, Heat knows Serph is watching him beneath a crown of bone. It makes him want to say something else, keep the attention on him. But there’s something else he wants more.

Varuna leaves footprints of frost as he closes the distance between himself and the former Brutes member, their eyes two bright dots set in a face of impossibly dark fur. The frost melts, evaporating into the atmosphere at Agni’s proximity. Heat shivers as a particularly frightful wave of Varuna’s power freezes even the humidity in the air – ephemeral particles, bewitching as they glimmer around Varuna in the frail light. Heat summons a fire in his palm, throws it in the direction their prey was edging towards. Steam suffuses the area, obscuring their vision, not that it matters. Heat can smell the blood of their next meal pulse through weak, undeserving veins.

And the steam – Heat wants the steam. Wants to see Varuna,  _ Serph _ , steam under his hands, watch him throw back his head and scream. Wants to burn away the armor of condensed bone, watch it disintegrate between his fingers, see if his blood evaporates as easily as the frost he conjures or if it resists like the mercury he resembles – if it’s just as poisonous.

A tremor runs through his body, the spikes armoring his shoulders and thighs rippling above corded muscles and rough skin.

He breaths and the air burns.

He sets his eyes back on the Brute and ruefully accepts he’ll have to settle for less. 

Serph seems hesitant to take the next move, the necessary move, the move that happened to be the entire reason Heat brought him out here – so he moves for him, claws of bone escaping the flesh of his hand with a sickening sound, prepared to rescue the beast from the pathetic existence it calls its life.

A thick wall of ice blocks him, and before he can size up the situation, Serph is twirling overhead, blade slicing clean through something with the wings of a bird of prey and a second set of jaws escaping the confines of its mouth, a dose of something viscous escaping and corroding the ground by Heat’s foot in large puddles. Acid. The viscera rains down upon him after, fortunately lacking any extra properties.

“You low-tier pieces of shit!” Heat roars, dual grins splitting his heads when other beasts begin to slither, swoop, and charge the first and second of Embryon. “Finally some entertainment!” He slurps up a chunk of entrails that landed on his shoulder before smashing a head between his hands, taking another moment to indulge and give himself a taste before barreling ahead yanking a snake-like tail up, watching the scales sizzle and burn under his hands before hurtling its face into a wall. He doesn’t have to go anywhere at all for the next one, as it flies right at him in hunger crazed desperation.

He bites, he grabs, he burns – he watches.

As Varuna, Serph moves with an otherworldly grace. Gone are the rigid reflexes instilled by hand to hand combat practice, replaced by merciless, powerful slices that seem to cut the air itself and leaves gouges of ice scarring the ground. It’s with envy he watches Serph’s opponents, knowing the power they face is reserved for enemies alone, that Heat can tease and bait Serph until the end of time and never once experience the rush of having those attacks aimed at him with intent to kill, never knowing what it would feel like to be frozen and shattered into pieces, never knowing if that blade of bone could cut through Agni’s armored skin as easily as it slices through the ligaments and tissue of their current foes.

Never knowing what Serph would look like under his foot after an exhilarating battle that left them both barely hanging onto life, the winner determined by sheer opportunity and chance after matching blow for blow for hours, the defiance that would certainly still gleam in his eyes, even as his body lie battered and broken and splayed beneath him.

How Serph would look above him, high on victory, famished with desire as he takes everything he wants from Heat’s body.

This is the image stuck in his head as Serph feeds, the remains of their ambushers spread around them in a buffet. He watches Varuna bend and rip chunks of meat from the carnage, lost in himself, and Heat waits, reverting to his human form as he picks a stringy piece of fat out of his teeth with a shard of bone.

The hunt went much better than expected. He hadn’t expected the outliers to group together, simply hoping to find a few individual strays that could no longer do anything more than fight and eat, planning to coax Serph into feasting with him when he would inevitably doubt himself, convince himself he didn’t need to eat – not with Sera’s blood in their arsenal.

But no, that’s not how it went at all.

Varuna’s face is soaked in a layer of blood, peppered by unidentifiable gore. Innards lay strewn around him, passed up in favor of lean muscle, but not forgotten. Definitely not forgotten, Heat determines as he reaches down for a piece only to find his forearm captured in a textured palm, Varuna hissing at him between blood stained teeth.

Frost creeps up Heat’s arm, chilling him to the core. He transforms his arm and Varuna wrests away from the flames engulfing it, the shock returning his higher functioning senses as his expression changes to something more familiar.

“It gets easier,” Heat pacifies, stepping closer, arms outstretched. “The more often you eat, the easier it is to stay in control.” In front of Varuna he reaches up, stroking the sides of his face, his human hand feeling the soft expanse of skin give way as he cleans some of the blood, restoring it to slate gray. Agni’s hand tenses and untenses, not meant for such gentle motions. “You’ll become stronger.”

A hand finds its way over his, and he watches as pointed teeth become rounded and eyes bright enough to light a room lock onto his own. As a hand designed to hold prey in place becomes soft, too soft for Heat to understand how it could have ever held onto any sort of weaponry.

“Sorry,” Serph says when he’s human again. Blood drips from his mouth, colors his lips and teeth, uses his skin as a canvas, flattens his hair against his scalp and forehead as it drips across his face.

Heat can’t look away.

“You should be,” He says, using the opportunity to lean down with a tilt of his head, lick a clean stripe from Serph’s chin to the corner of his mouth, biting at a meaty chunk of flesh hanging there, suppressing a moan when the flavor kickstarts his hunger back into full gear.

Serph stares back at him with eyes far,  _ far _ too bright, teeth grinding as he swallows. He shoves Heat’s transformed hand away from where it was directing his chin up and runs his fingers through Heat’s hair before grasping and yanking and shoving his tongue into Heat’s mouth, teeth clanging and clacking together as he takes back what Heat stole from him, breaking away to swallow it down before picking up from where he left off, ensuring that Heat didn’t get away with a single bit.

Momentarily stunned, Heat recovers with gusto, letting Serph have his way with him while reaping the benefits. He runs two mismatched hands across a slim back, mentally cursing the thick, leathery material of their uniforms, wondering how much Serph would mind walking back to headquarters without it before deciding that he doesn’t particularly care. He cuts a line down the back with the precision of a surgeon, not disrupting a single fibre of Serph’s black undershirt. The shirt moves easily at Heat’s command, allowing him to reach for skin he only rarely gets the privilege of seeing ever since Serph became the leader of Embryon and has only ever touched to remove bullets and stitch wounds.

He doesn’t know why it’s so different with Serph, why he wants to bite, leave marks, to  _ consume _ , but not consume the flesh, no, no, not the flesh, not exactly – something else, something more. He wants everything Serph has to offer, and he can’t offer much more than his corpse if he’s dead.

Serph gasps as Heat lights a faint spark against bare skin. The coarse pads of Agni’s fingertips explore the small of his back, count the vertebrae of his spine, slide across the grooves between his ribs, feel the twitch of obliques when he ventures towards his stomach.

Serph shoves him once, knocking him off balance, but not enough to drop him to the floor – which gives him an idea. Heat drops down, pulling an overstimulated Serph along with him, eyes glazed over as he tries to catch his breath.

Heat, the benevolent being that he is, allows this reprieve as Serph better situates himself on his lap and discards the remains of his vandalized uniform jacket. Heat runs his eyes along naked arms as Serph pants, brushing his blood-slick hair back out of his face, hair now a shade of red darker than Heat’s own, wiping the blood from his eyes as he runs them up and down his second in command.

Heat’s breath curls up through the air in a white mist.

And maybe it’s his imagination, after all, there still is a fair amount of blood left on Serph’s face – and he doubts his own fares any better – but there’s a flush to Serph’s skin, starting at his ears and face and travelling down, down, down to areas Heat has yet to unlock. Maybe it’s the heat – literal heat, as Heat himself continues to caress Serph’s back with Agni’s hand, already hot by itself and even more so as he uses it to conjure more and more sparks to tease. But maybe it’s something else, because Serph can counter that brand of heat – Varuna ensures it. Or maybe it’s –

Serph bites Heat’s lip, and oh, Heat thinks he’s starting to get it, a conflict of interest between Serph’s human side and Atma side, because humans are  _ supposed  _ to run warm –

Serph grinds down against him and all thoughts are gone, reprieve is over and done with, and Heat has no fucking idea what that was, but it might have been on par with or better than fighting and eating and this is the Junkyard and he has to take all the good he can get or regret it later and  _ Heat does not regret _ . Never.

He flips their positions, pressing Serph into the filthy floor still littered with chunks of gore and discarded bodies and splattered pools of dark liquid. He should want to keep eating, but instead he presses the hard line of his body against Serph’s limber one, acknowledging the agonizing ache between his legs, and it’s just him and Serph and the dirty floor, no Embryon, no enemies, just nails sinking into skin and far too much clothing between the two of them and Heat  _ doesn’t know _ what they’re doing, but it doesn’t seem like he needs to when he thrusts down and is rewarded with Serph throwing his head back, a euphoric moan escaping his lips, and Heat thinks he could live in it – that sound, that sound  _ he _ made come out of Serph’s mouth – and Serph turns his head to the side, the small puddle of blood beneath them dying the unmarked side of his face with a fresh coat of red and the way Serph looks at him from the corner of his eyes, mouth ajar he takes uneven breaths –

Something howls nearby, and Heat is all for ignoring it – he’ll fucking vaporize anything that dares to interrupt this time, but Serph is already sitting up, holding Heat an arm’s length away, eyes snapping from over here to over there. After a moment of total silence, Heat tries to pick up where they left off, but Serph shoots him an incredulous look before slipping out from underneath him, blood dripping down the back of his arms and smeared heavily across his pants.

He stands there for a moment while Heat internally cycles through every curse and insult he knows, going out of his way to create a few new ones before swearing eternal suffering to whatever ran by without stopping to let Heat murder it.

Serph bows over without warning, hand over his mouth, arm around his stomach – and Heat sighs.

“After all that?” He asks, kneeling next to him, stroking back his hair.

Serph glowers, but he’s too busy fighting the nausea for it to have any effect. “Shut up.”

Heat raises a brow and complies, picking up a bone and sucking out the marrow. Serph shakes, closing his eyes while Heat laughs, pulling Serph into his shoulder and rubbing his back.

“You’re getting better,” He assures. “Come with me next time, too.”

Serph’s too busy taking deep breaths to respond, but Heat knows he’ll get his way. Serph makes it too easy.

Heat loops an arm under Serph’s knees and hoists him up, reveling in the feel of Serph’s arm slipping under his cloak and sliding around the back of his neck for support.

“Throw up or don’t. I’m not going to carry you the whole way,” Heat lies, intending to do exactly that. He mutters, “Need to find a water source before we get too close to base or the damned bishop will never let me hear the end of it. You’re a mess, Serph.”

“Shut up,” Serph groans again.

“And  _ Serph _ ,” Heat says, emphasizing his name, “What happened just now… This isn’t the end of it.”

There’s no reply again, but that’s fine.

He rubs Serph’s back some more, feels the frigid breath against his neck, the beat of a heart through a thin shirt.

Maybe Heat’s the instigator, but Serph has been the one to make the first real move two days in a row.

Time to make it a third.


End file.
